


In Between Days

by lordnelson100



Series: Breviary: Short Tales [5]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Confessions, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Mention of Faramir Past Adventures, Mild Smut, Off-screen Relationship(s), Post-War of the Ring, Speed Dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordnelson100/pseuds/lordnelson100
Summary: Eowyn and Faramir go riding and confess their pasts. “Well, Steward, you have certainly behaved very badly. I will forgive you, on one condition,” Eowyn said, glancing at him from under her pale lashes.





	In Between Days

 

**Gondor, Springtime, TA 3019**

Eowyn insisted he must give up business for one day at least, and come out riding.  Out of habit, he almost declined.  Surely there was more that his duty to the City required that day—and every day. There had been no time between the one day the world didn’t end and now, for . . . . well, anything. Certainly not for riding, for playing, for pleasure of any sort.

But a shadow darted into his mind:  he remembered the corrosive effect of relentless anxiety and the refusal of human weakness, eating away at his father. He banished that poisonous memory as quickly as he could. All the more reason to give the answer he wanted: _yes_.

Both of them had lost their own horses in the great battle outside the city. When Faramir arrived in the stableyard, he found Eowyn had been loaned a mount by one of  her wounded Rohirrim riders. She was petting the nose of Aevar, a great brown cavalry horse, sixteen hands high, prancing and restive with too much inactivity. Despite having one arm still weakened, she swung herself into the saddle with an easy grace.  

Faramir was less lucky in his steed. Almost all of the City’s small cavalry, man and horse, died in that final wasteful charge. He rode old Prince, an aged veteran with white on his muzzle, who’d been kept around the barrack stables for errands,  and thus survived the disaster that swept away all his companions. Faramir petted the poor lean hack, wondering what he made of all the empty stalls around him.

Faramir still wore by habit his mail shirt and weather-stained Ranger cloak.  He hadn’t been able to bear to touch the fur-lined robes of office his father left.

Eowyn, on her big horse,  was far taller than he. She had her long cornsilk hair carelessly tied back, and was dressed in a mix of her war-gear and borrowed leathers. 

“I am _not_ going riding in the great lacy skirts the kind ladies of Gondor have leant me,” she said out of the side of her mouth, her head held high. “And my own packing was somewhat light.” She did not say, but Faramir thought it anyway, that she had ridden away to battle with no thought of returning alive. 

There were no subjects between them, it seemed, that could not take a dark or sorrowful turn.  

And yet, Faramir found himself half-laughing at the sight they made together and saw, sidelong, that she was biting back something of the same. Together they rode down to the main gate, acknowledging the salutes of the Tower guards, and studiously ignoring the hands flying up to shield gossip. 

Out on the fields, as the white city walls fell into the distance behind them, there was a scent of warm spring grass, hopeful despite the mud and battle damage that still marred the plains far and wide.

Aevar’s long legs and eagerness kept outpacing Prince, and Eowyn kept having to check him gently to let Faramir keep alongside.  At last he said, “Lady, we must be merciful! Give your fellow his head. Have a nice gallop out and back again, and Prince and I will meet you half-way, like the battered old gentlemen we are.”

She smiled at him ( _and if ever a man were rewarded for giving up his mannish pride_ ) and with a quick flick of the reins, she did indeed let loose.  Lady and horse sped over the plain, the horse throwing himself joyfully into the wind, she bent over his neck, elbows pumping. They sped on towards the wide river, then turned and galloped back again, slowing gracefully to where Faramir and his patient hack had quietly picked their way. Eowyn’s face was ruddy and shone with a healthy sweat under the warm spring sun.

Faramir thought, “We are alive,” and perhaps his face spoke for him, because she reached out her hand and wordlessly placed it over his, riding so close that their legs touched from moment to moment. And thus they rode on.

In the late afternoon, Eowyn and Faramir wandered the bank of the river, letting their horses cool their feet in the shallows. Sweet-smelling honeysuckle thickets shaded the water here and there, and the bees were hard at work, making small golden arcs as their tiny bodies caught the lingering light.

“Go on, busy brothers!” Faramir said to them. “But I will still play the truant!” 

At last they came to a small silent cottage. They knocked, for Faramir as he went still had a Ranger’s eye out for strayed or endangered locals. But they soon discovered that the door was unlatched; the henhouse and small cow byre empty. With luck, the inhabitants had got safely away before Sauron’s troops swept through the countryside. There were no signs of violence, at least. 

They hobbled their horses where they could reach good grass, and went in.  Eowyn built a small fire in the cottage hearth, and quietly they spread out their little repast: bread, olives, wine.

After, as they lay stretched on their sides, each with a cup of wine, Faramir was filled with a sense of pleasant suspense. There was nothing that he wanted to hurry: nothing needing haste. But he did not know what she would do next, and his heart felt deliciously teased with longing.

She surprised him by reaching out, and gently touching his hair, tucking a lock back behind his ear. She gave him a half-conspiratorial grin, and he smiled back. 

“What?”

“You are so very _lovely_ ,” she said. “So proper-looking. Like a prince in a storybook of painted pictures.” 

It is something he had never liked about himself, he thought; the delicate, almost prim shape of his countenance. It was his mother’s look, he has been told.  So old, the feeling that what he was, he ought not to be. 

So many years proving himself a warrior, and wishing to scour away the scholar and the lovely boy. And here, after all, was Eowyn, and she wanted those things. So many years he spent covered in dirt, and sweat, and blood, and sadness, all in the service of his country, yes, but also to prove something to a father who looked on him with sourness and distaste.  And she touched him, not as if those things had never been, but as if they had washed away.

“There is something I should tell you,” said Eowyn. “Since we have pledged one another. Shield-maiden they call me. But I am no maid. We keep not so many rules, up in Rohan,  as you City men. But still, a Lady of the King’s House is held to a higher standard than some crofter’s daughter. Only, you see, my mother and father died when I was little, and so, too, the King’s wife, my aunt. So I had no close loving lady’s eye on me, as I ought. And it has been a time of war for so long, and I running wild with my brother and cousin.”

He took her hand, and ran his thumb over hers. The brave cousin was slain in the war, too, he knew. What losses she has seen, his tough, bright rider. 

“My weakness was no great love affair, I can tell you that. Only a lieutenant of my brother’s, a loud-talking fellow with a fair face and a great deal of cheek. And, well. I thought you should know.”

Faramir looked into her face: “And what became of this lieutenant with the fair face? Nothing tragic, I hope?”  
  
“What? No! He went home for the harvest and came back married. She was the daughter of a rich Earl,  with a nice big bottom and a bigger horse herd! He’s perfectly happy, the last I looked: got a bit fat, though.”

“Well, that’s not so bad then, is it?”  He stroked her golden hair. “You weren’t in love with him, and there’s no sad story of a lost hero for me to worry about.”

Outside, the swallows are twittering as sundown nears. He sees her face clear of worry, easily; he likes it, that it wasn’t a very deep worry. That she trusts him, already, not to be such a fool as _that_.

“And now, I must reward your honesty with my own.” He added a little mock dramatics to his tone, and drew himself up on his elbow. “I, too, am not a maid.”

She laughed her deep rich laugh at him, and punched his shoulder. 

“And who was she, or they? Were they among the high ladies of Gondor? At least let me know who may be staring daggers at me at the court!”

“No. No great ladies. I am afraid my history is not a very courteous one. My brother, you know, was a great warrior, but never married, and was very wild in his ways. And I sought to follow him in all things. I am afraid that several times I was educated by . . . well, _ladies of the evening_ , we call them. I am sorry if it is offensive to you!”

Eowyn did not look very shocked. “We have them, too, you know. Only we call them _camp-followers_ because,  with our Mark riders going forth in their éoreds, the ladies naturally need to travel after. The successful ones have very nice caravans, in fact, all brightly painted. I wasn’t supposed to see them.” She grinned. “Is that all?”

He looked down, and played with a bit of straw that came to hand.  “Not quite. There was a friend I had. Well, he began as a friend of my brother; he served in his guard. I think, to be honest, that he had feelings for Boromir that were not returned, for my brother liked both lads and ladies, but none did he keep to.”

She was looking at him intently: this part has surprised her. “And so one summer, some years ago, this guard from the South and I, we struck up an intimacy. And over wine and loneliness, we became, well, more intimate than we should. I was curious, and did not like to tell him no—though I should have, for I knew he did not have my heart.” 

The straw in his hand breaks, and he looks sadly at it. “It did not last long. He was killed that fall, poor fellow, in one of the battles beyond the river. We had already parted by then.”

“I am sorry for him,” Eowyn looked thoughtful.  “So you have shared your body with both several women, who made love for their profession, and a man.” 

Faramir said, “I have. But my heart I shared with none, till you.”

She looked up. “Did they—teach you things, these lovers?”

“What sort of things?” said Faramir, cautiously. 

“Those that—that good married people are not supposed to know of,” she said, looking at the ceiling.

Faramir drew very close to her. “I am afraid they did. For example, things that are done with the mouth and hands.” He toyed with her hand, and kissed it. “Things that would alarm a chaste man.”

“Oh!” she said, blushing, speaking softly. She gently unbuttoned her jerkin then and lifted his hand to just where her undershirt opened. He slid his hand in, over her high, small, firm breast. It was very warm.

She continued then, looking at him from under long, pale lashes.  “And these things of the mouth and hand—were they done _to_ you, or did you do them to these friends of yours?”

“Both,” he whispered in her ear, leaning over her.

“To the ladies, or to the fellow?”

“Both,” he whispered again.

“OH!” she said. “And did—did you make love only with the proper parts below, or with—or also in the parts that are said to be wicked?”

“All of them,” he said, and kissed her forehead. He had her pretty breast in his hand now, and he kneaded it firmly.

She gasped, and choked back something between a laugh and a cry. 

“Well!  Well, Steward, you have certainly behaved very badly. I will forgive you, on one condition,” she said. “I am afraid I must have you _show_ me all these offensive things you have done. For only if I truly know all about them,  will I be able to give a proper pardon.”

“Yes,” he said. “I love you.”

  



End file.
